His peace

P3333 There’s great value in resting.

/ DVH

We’ve been actively resting in the past four days. After the intense chaos of making many deliveries and having lots of positive interactions;  by God’s grace we found a quiet spot on a farm stay, and we’ve done nothing – apart from eat and sleep. We needed it. Neither of us are 23 anymore! There is one thing I’ve noticed about God’s kind of resting, the more you do it, the more you want to — plus you start to feel better.

Resting from our labours here, BTW, consists of me falling asleep several times during the day, as well as sleeping for 7 or 8 hours per night. Hubby nods off regularly and then quietly snores, and then … he wakes himself up with the snuffly noise. It really is better that he wakes himself up – the alternative is that I whack him on the arm and say “Honey you’re snoring again.” OK! You got me, I don’t whack him alright? But-I-do-sometimes-think-about-it!

Rest is something the bible tells us that we are to enter into. In other words, it’s a place where you leave everything else outside the door, take the Lord’s hand, and just be content with the fact that He is in charge. It is God’s gift to us, and He made it clear that rest is available any time, any place. It means that everything else fades into the background. When we are away on a trip, we even like to cut down on extraneous noise from the TV and stuff, and just sit. Sometimes we don’t even talk, or pray. We just let the quietness sink in. At the same time we do restful fun things — hubby trots about taking brilliant photos and I get to see them.

Resting in the Lord, can get even deeper… it’s in the scripture. It’s a place where we leave the results and the work to God Himself. In my opinion this is one of the most challenging ways to use our faith. It’s not the Lord’s fault, it is just that we have spent our lives doing the next thing and the next, and then suddenly we realise we have stumbled back into trying harder and harder. Pushing ourselves to make things work. Meanwhile other people start to give you the pip, because you are tired of wrangling and managing stuff, and nothing is simple anymore. 

God’s rest is the place where you don’t have to make things happen. Here’s my point today — this kind of rest is part of our birthright. The secret is to live in the hustle and bustle of this life without constantly engaging our emotions and our minds. Step back into the Lord and breathe, and defer to His wisdom, simply because we love to walk with Him, even in ordinary things.

I can almost hear a mother somewhere yelling at me: “If I don’t make my kids get out of bed and go to school they won’t do it. They won’t do their homework either!” I really dislike those happy happy pictures of tidy little smiley kids smartly marching out of the door, dressed properly. It’s a wonder they don’t have sunbeams coming out of their ears! In most homes this time of the day is a bun fight – making sure this kid has this, and that kid has it’s socks on, plus leave the house yourself! This is not the kind of rest the Lord is talking about in the bible, His rest is internal. Your kids may not want to go to school, etc., but you can still be at rest in Him. He’s ultimately in charge of your well-being, and theirs. It’s the place to say: “HELP, LORD!”

You can choose to be upset with them, or cry out for His Grace and patience for those moments. We don’t have to lose our cool because the little darlings won’t co-operate. Often we willingly give up our internal rest and peace, because we are deceived into hoping and thinking, that worrying or shouting will work … because nothing else seems to! However, God’s idea of rest is stepping back momentarily and leaning on Him. When, and if you can – remember, humour helps. He organised a couple of million grumpy Jews to get up every morning to a ready-made breakfast … your kids are a piece of cake!

His rest inside of us flows out of us as His peace toward other people. Deal with you, and then deal with them. The whole gotta be, gotta do, gotta go, gotta get it right thing – falls away as we focus on His bigger picture. He’s God and He won’t let us down no matter how it looks, simply because He is so-o-o faithful. I call this stuff my faith work out. It’s the place where all the worst cases scenarios smack you in the head and you can’t think clearly anymore because your mind is filled with scenes and thoughts of “what if.” There are no “what ifs” in God’s rest – there is only the bigness of Who He is. 

We enter that rest by focussing on Him and deliberately choosing to momentarily lay everything else at His feet. I think this kind of incredible stillness was inside the Holy of Holies in the Temple. Any other noise stayed outside. So did agendas. You can be present with the Lord and still do the things that need to be done. It’s good to remember YOU and I are now the Holy of Holies. Father God produces the kind of quiet comfort that releases an atmosphere of safety. Nothing bad can happen in His Presence, He’s just too awesome. 

As we learn to cultivate the Holy Spirit’s Presence by living our lives His Way – we will find our confidence in Him grows. Jesus lived like this. He lived in God’s grace and assurance that He was at the right place at the right time — doing what His Father wanted Him to do. Jesus’ confidence in His Father’s Will allowed the people around Him to experience God’s loving kindness easily. This rest means we cease from our labours and lean on Him and there’s great value in it. Bye. 👋

P 3195 Respond.

/ DVH

“Faith, then, is birthed in a heart that responds to God’s anointed utterance of the Anointed One.” Romans 10:17 TPT. 

The important word in the above scripture is respond. This is how we grow our faith, by actively responding to what Jesus says. The meaning of respond is — “do something as a reaction to someone or something.” Hebrews 11:1 says:“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  The thing is we want evidence to help us believe, but the lack of evidence is the very thing that stimulates and grows faith. So if our faith lacks substance it means we are not doing anything about what we believe!

Our response is always optional because Jesus won’t make us do anything! However, it is imperative and essential that our faith produces something more substantial than words. Let’s look at this a bit more deeply. In Isaiah 29:13 the Lord has been angry with Israel and He talks about His anger, because His people say one thing, but do another. He calls that lip service, and that is not a good look for His people. “And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honour Me with their lips, while their hearts are far from Me, and their fear of Me is a commandment taught by men,…”  

In the New Testament in 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” These  scriptures are not just for our information. They are written to teach us how to live. Training in righteousness is about acceptance, repetition and practice, it is not just about learning the language so we can fit in or have an opinion. Training implies effort, and that effort is to help us take what we hear, and act on it. We are to do more than just agree with the sentiment or the language. Our task is to make the faith He has given us real in our everyday lives. 

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your Name, and cast out demons in Your Name, and do many mighty works in Your Name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matthew 7:21-23. 

Chunky stuff eh? Not to be trifled with, and yet it seems so harsh. It is amazing that Jesus would say something so direct and severe. It seems to me that there are two kinds of Lordship, the one that it is in name only, and someone who chooses to live like Jesus would – if He were here with us today, in Person. Whether we are at home, alone, at school, or in the middle of our work environment. Lordship is not something to be trifled with. It is clear Jesus takes it extremely seriously! So we need to take it seriously too. 

The next issue is how? How do we live in His Lordship, day after day and night after night? The only way I know  is to choose to make quality decisions, minute by minute, and stick by them. Well meaning, sincere declarations at an altar made in a moment of time, don’t always work! They must be followed up by training.  Eventually we will begin to exchange the habits of a lifetime through prayer and practice. I’ve found some habits, some ways of thinking, are harder to shift than others. I think the secret is in what David did. He took his reference point for using his faith, from his experiences of God’s Grace in the past. 

Living in and giving away Grace is essential to the Lord’s kind of inward transformation. We cannot maintain grudges etc. and keep moving. Think of your internal heartache as mountains that will not stand a chance, because Jesus is on the scene. Remind yourself and the enemy, that the Lord Jesus once cursed a tree and it was dead as a dodo the next day! Everything in the bible has a practical application. We will just have to look for, and seek those applications out for ourselves and then live them out.

Second-hand information can seem to profit our emotions temporarily, and even stir us – but it is our commitment to find out for ourselves that causes transformation. Daily the Lord says: ‘Will you walk with Me today?’ That’s when we will have to file all our past failures and disappointments away into His hands — under: “things I will understand one day in the future.’ Or …’maybe I won’t understand but I won’t give a darn by then.’

Job’s response to all kinds of pressure was this: “Even though He kills me, I’ll continue to hope in Him. At least I’ll be able to argue my case to His face!” Job 13:15. Letting go is the only way forward that will lead us into living in His peace. Remember, it’s His peace, so we must do it His way! The bible is crystal clear that our God’s ways are not our ways, so our lack of mental or emotional understanding is irrelevant. Unfortunately, the person who needs to make this kind of decision is always ME – you can’t do it for me, I can’t do it for you. 

Our responses matter. We have entered into a time where our training often happens under duress. That stretching and buffeting could cause us to doubt He will help us, but the way to learn that the Lord is utterly good and reliable, is to live like He is utterly reliable! Talking about it doesn’t make it real – acting on what He has said makes it real and gives it substance.. Our responses count. Bye 👋

P 3077 God has a different value system

/ DVH

Life is a funny thing — day after day we can try so hard to appear to be so together – spiritually, physically, and emotionally. We can unwittingly perpetuate deception, when we tell ourselves that we must continue to try harder — because we don’t want to let the Lord, or my family, or the church, or my job, down. Maybe the real truth is that we don’t want to be vulnerable in front of other people, because we don’t actually trust them! Or perhaps we think we will be judged if our humanity shows. 

Have we accidentally believed the lie or the hype that says God’s people are meant to be already perfected, getting everything right all the time? After all we want to be a good witness for Jesus! However, He’s the burden bearer – He is NOT the one who overloads us!! Day by day we are on a road. We are sojourners… travellers, learning as we go – like Abraham did. That learning does not stop while we are here. Religion likes the appearance of doing good, but that stuff will create frustration with yourself and others. 

In contrast, the bible account of Abraham’s life reveals His humanity. This man followed the Lord step by step from an old life into a new one. That new life was God’s own design, not his!  Abraham’s mistakes became stepping off points into what God actually wanted in the first place. The man’s faith in God’s ability to bring him through the difficulties he faced, increased as he simply kept putting one foot in front of another and obeying what the Lord told him to do.

When, if EVER, did our salvation rest on us? Our God only made the world, without our prayers, and without us to advise Him! He is and He always will be, His own incredibly wise counsel! What on earth makes us think we can fix ourselves? We desperately try to find the right person to pray for us, or the right prayer to pray, or the right scripture to quote over and over again. The Lord knows we are dust! Thinking point:  dust is just everything around us, broken down, worn down by time, into teeny tiny particles. Only God Himself can take dust … or dry bones … and make it live again! 

I think our worst problem is that we have made Almighty God too small. We have our gimme doctrines of wanting this and wanting that, and expecting Him to cough stuff up, as we accidentally call presumption, FAITH. We are settling for the appearance of looking good, or being nice people, instead of pressing in for complete restoration healing and transformation. I can’t fix anyone … not even me!  We are all broken one way or another!

Our loving Father God is always seeking US. He has our good in His heart because HE IS GOOD. Jesus didn’t set up a tent, and say: “…if you want to be healed come to My tent meetings!” He went out amongst the people and ministered to them wherever He found them, and most of the time, they found Him! That’s what our God is like! Always seeking us, always wanting everything to work together for our good – that’s His purpose! Our holy, sometimes self-serving, clusters are keeping real seekers out. What we are basically saying is to be saved means you will look like US! Doesn’t that line scare you…just a little bit?

The bible reveals God’s thoughts: ”Jesus says, “If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit,… ”John 15:5. Our problem we need to learn how to remain in Him, especially when stuff happens! Grapes don’t go wandering about looking for better nutrition or a stronger place in the vine – grapes are stationary. They are totally dependant upon the POWER OF THE SAP TO KEEP THEM. That place is the place where we live.

Remaining in Him means I trust Him no matter how things look. It is hardly ever about whatever is actually going on, most of the time this life is about Who is in charge here? Even bad things come to an end, one way or another. The reality of Jesus in our lives, is in the presence of His peace. He stood up in a storm and told it to shut up and it did. Boy do I pick Him to be my best friend! I wanna be like Jonathan – he knew how to pick best friends! Meanwhile we must remember, we are all in transit. Think on this as an aim for your life: “But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13 MSG

The sooner we realise that we are not capable of figuring things out so that they work perfectly, every single time — the sooner we can get about the business of simply following Him, step by step, like Abraham. Jesus Christ is God’s first-born of many sons and daughters, but even Jesus didn’t PRESUME on His unique position. His faith was in His Father’s ability to carry out whatever Almighty God wanted, whenever He wanted it.

If we want to live in peace with people around us, then we must learn to trust God no matter what else is going on. Jesus didn’t take sides in conflicts –  all He cared about was His Father receiving His due glory, and His will being done. The people who love their God and do great exploits look like this: “For God makes all the decisions here. God is our King. God runs this place and He’ll keep us safe.” Isaiah 33:22.

Trust the Lord. His ways are not our ways, and His value system is not like ours. And if you know you are broken, don’t be ashamed – we ALL are. Some of us just hide it better than others do. Bye. 👋